It is to be expected that Jonas Kaufmann, currently the ‘best-known’ tenor
from Germany, would honour the Wagner anniversary year with a recital CD of
further excerpts from his operas. Though not presented chronologically this
current choice seems to be attempting to illustrate how his compositional
style developed from the earlier ‘numbers’ operas to the later ones that meld
words and music in a way only Wagner can. Parsifal is missing though
has been included on a previous CD. Tristan is only obliquely referred
to in the unique – for a tenor - rendition of the Wesendonck-Lieder
that contains some of the composer’s preliminary ideas for that opera.

Dass der mein Vater nicht ist from Siegfried and Am
stillen Herd from Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg are not even
‘bleeding chunks’ in the common usage but simply wrenched out of the complete
works to give Kaufmann something different to sing. It reminds me of the Reginald
Goodall Memorial Concert in 1991 when Britain’s last great heroic tenor, Alberto
Remedios, was initially asked to sing just the last death throes of Siegfried’s
Narration. Naturally, he considered this ‘not on’ and by singing the whole
thing left the audience in the Royal Festival Hall with a reminder of how
wonderful he had been in that role. I mention this because Kaufmann’s Siegmund
and Lohengrin are relatively known quantities. Walther from Die Meistersinger
he has sung live once in Edinburgh in 2006 (review),
but he has yet to sing Rienzi, Tannhäuser and Siegfried in the complete operas
… and possibly never will. Regarding Edinburgh, I mentioned a lack of vocal
weight and the use of a ‘crooning falsetto’. I will come back to this later.

Mention of Remedios, the most Italianiate of recent Wagnerian tenors, and
of my obvious admiration for him, reminds me of other types of Wagner heldentenors
I have most admired over the past decades from Jess Thomas, Peter Hoffmann,
and Siegfried Jerusalem to Robert Dean Smith and Klaus Florian Vogt. All these
singers have a brightness of sound that Kaufmann audibly resists. It is as
though he wants to present himself as the antithesis of his compatriot, Vogt,
who is little known outside Germany. That singer’s luminous clarity of tone
is at odds with Kaufmann’s occasional darkly baritonal timbre that seems to
be his impression of what a Wagner tenor should sound like. This is never
more noticeable than in Siegmund’s Ein Schwert verhiess mir der Vater
that for me is so dark that I find it uneasy to listen to. His cries of Wälse!
Wälse! are not nearly as thrilling as Robert Dean Smith’s should be on
a forthcoming live Pentatone recording from Berlin.

When Siegfried is reflecting under the linden tree about how he longs to know
what his mother was like, Kaufmann’s beautiful brighter sound hints at what
his true voice actually is and heads upwards towards that ‘crooning falsetto’.
His musical intelligence and superb technique is not in question but I doubt
he would have the stamina for either of the Siegfrieds or the relentlessly
high Tannhäuser. Here with the Rome Narration Inbrunst in Herzen,
despite being well sung, it does not truly embody the edge-of-insanity and
full-on bitterness his character experiences at this point in the opera. Some
might suggest he lightens his voice for Lohengrin’s In fernem Land
which is here given in the original version with the second verse that Wagner
cut before the première and is only rarely performed. I would propound that
this is his more natural sound. Even so, he never approaches the vocal ease
and exaltation Vogt achieves in what is his Wagner rival’s signature role.

This CD is great for those more familiar with recorded Wagner rather than
as it is performed in the opera house. Perhaps the best case to be made for
this new release is the wonderful support Kaufmann gets from Donald Runnicles
and the Orchester der Deutschen Oper Berlin. The orchestral playing has a
compulsive spontaneity that suggests there were not that many ‘takes’ to from
which to choose.

Another good reason to give this new Wagner selection a listen is Kaufmann’s
interpretation of the Wesendonck-Lieder that strongly challenges
the best female singers for exceptional legato and beauty of tone.

As reported in the booklet accompanying the CD, when Kaufmann was asked about
singing these songs he quoted the following lines from Im Treibhaus
that in translation are:-

Well I know, poor plant,
we share the same fate:
though bathed in light and splendour,
our home is not here!

He suggests: ‘That is precisely Wagner’s situation in his Swiss exile. Objectively
things were going well for him, yet he didn’t feel at home. Doesn’t that lend
itself to being sung by a man?’ Admittedly it took repeated listenings before
I was totally won over by an interpretation that lacks the eroticism with
which a soprano or mezzo can imbue these songs. Kaufmann is clearly a Lieder
singer of great emotional range and vocal subtlety. Unfortunately the world
demands of him that he be the future of Wagner singing and the Walther, Tristan
and Parsifal of some opera management’s dreams. It is to be hoped that Jonas
Kaufmann is intelligent enough to know his own limitations and leave these
and other intense, stamina-sapping and vocally demanding roles to those born
to sing them. Those singers are out there somewhere - I am sure they are.
People just need to look hard enough.

Jim Pritchard

Kaufmann is intelligent enough to leave these intense, stamina-sapping and
vocally demanding roles to those born to sing them.